Mouse in the House

Transcript

Hello, and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman.
Today we are learning how to play a new song called Mouse in the House.
For this song, I'm on my digital piano again, so we can play it in a rock style.
Here goes:
Mouse, mousie in the housie, hurry, hurry do.
Or the kitty in the housie will be chasing you.

First let's figure out the solfège of this song. For "Mouse in the House,”
we'll only be using DO, MI, and SO, three notes all a step apart.
Let's practice singing that together with hand signs. Try it with me:
DO MI SO. Good, now let's come back down.
SO MI DO. That's called skipping down. Now try this one:
DO SO. Your turn.
Good, now this one: SO DO. You try.
Super. Now, for Mouse in the House,
I'll sing the first three notes, and you try and tell me what they are in solfège.
Here goes: ba-ba-ba. What would that be in solfège?
Can you say it? Listen again: ba-ba-ba.
If you said SO MI DO, you're correct.

Let's come over to the grand staff and try drawing those notes.
Here we are on the grand staff.
The first three notes of Mouse in the House are SO MI DO,
and since we're going to be in the C major pentascale,
we'll put SO on G, and you'll remember that G is on this line
that goes through the middle of the treble clef swirl.
We have SO, MI is a skip down, and then we need to skip down again,
so we'll need a ledger line here on DO.
Together that makes SO MI DO, three notes skipping down.
Can you point with me and sing the solfège? Ready, go: SO MI DO.
Good, now the next part of "Mouse in the House" goes: Ba-ba-ba-ba.
What would that be in solfège? The correct answer is SO SO MI DO,
almost the same pattern, but this time SO repeats.
We have SO, repeat, skip down, skip down, or SO SO MI DO.
Now can you point with me and let's sing the solfège of the whole thing so far?
Ready, go: SO MI DO, SO SO MI DO.

Good, now let's figure out the next part of "Mouse in the House."
The next part of "Mouse in the House" goes ba-ba.
What would that be in solfège? The correct answer is SO DO.
So I draw it like this: SO DO.
Now remember in music we have two kinds of languages.
We're learning the solfège language, also we learned letter names.
If you forgot the letter name of this note, we know it's SO DO,
but in letter names this would be G C,
because here we're on the G line, and then we come down to middle C.
And what comes next? We have bah-bah-bah, three repeating notes,
so we'd sing DO DO DO, or if we are doing letters, we could say C C C, like this.
Now can you point and sing the solfège with me? Ready, go:
SO DO DO DO DO.
Now let's sing the letter names. Ready, go:
G C C C C.

Great job. Time to practice moving our fingers now.
Okay, let's hold up your right hand with me,
and we're going to start with a skipping-down pattern: SO MI DO.
Let's try it together. Ready, go:
SO MI DO.
Good. The next part goes SO SO MI DO. Your turn.
Good, then we have SO DO, your turn.
Then DO DO DO. Your turn.
Good. Next we have SO SO MI DO. Your turn.
Then another SO SO MI DO. Your turn.
Good. Next, SO DO, your turn.
Then DO DO DO. Great job.

Now let's come to the piano and give it a try.
For "Mouse in the House" let's use the C major pentascale,
although later on you could try transposing this to the D major pentascale.
Remember we only need DO, MI, and SO for this song,
these three notes, using figure five, three, and one.
I'll play a pattern, then you play it back: SO MI DO. Your turn.
Good. SO SO MI DO, your turn.
Good. SO DO, your turn.
DO DO DO, your turn.
As you're playing, make sure you have great piano posture
with curved fingers, especially on your pinky, finger five.
Make sure it's playing on its tip, not flat.

Let's try the next part with lyrics this time. For the kitty. Your turn.
In the housie. Your turn.
My turn again. Will be. Your turn.
Chasing you. Your turn.
Then on the word run we're going to do something called a glissando,
which sounds like this. Run!
We turn our hand upside down, and, using our fingernails,
we glide up the keys to make it sound
like the mouse running away from the cat.
Every pianist does a glissando differently,
but I like to turn my hand at an angle like this,
because this part of your finger sometimes is a little bit sensitive,
and it could hurt, and so you want to try to tip your hand
so only your fingernails touch, and do it a little bit gently, but quickly,
and then it doesn't really hurt you
because only your fingernails are touching the keys.

Now I'd like you to press pause and practice "Mouse in the House"
from the beginning all the w ...